Oversight
Four primitives decide and prove; this one keeps a person in the loop where a person belongs. Oversight is not a dashboard. It is the set of moments where Regent refuses to act on an agent’s word alone and asks the human who answers for it, and the record it keeps of what that human said.
Where a person is required
| Moment | What happens | What the record says |
|---|---|---|
| Binding an agent | every agent is registered under a responsible party: a verified person or an organization’s verified administrator | responsible_party_id on the agent, anchored with its identity |
| Granting authority | limits are terms. A mandate is activated only by the owner’s signature over them: a passkey in a production organization, the session in a sandbox; an API key cannot activate a mandate | approval_method, approval_digest in every token and receipt under that mandate |
| Escalation | a payment above the ask-first threshold, a medium behavioural risk on a money action, a policy rule that says ask: the agent stops, the owner sees the request (console, e-mail, a card in the chat), approves or declines with the passkey; the agent retries the same call with the same idempotency_key | the decision carries the approval; the receipt carries approval_method |
| Step-up | above a threshold the organization sets, a passkey is not enough: the approver confirms with their face at the identity provider | approval_method: passkey+authid; no biometric is stored by Regent |
| Asking for more | an agent may ask for a budget, up to a ceiling; only a person can grant it | the request lands under Approvals and in the owners’ inbox; nothing changes until signed |
| Stopping | the kill switch: revoking an agent suspends every mandate it holds within milliseconds; deleting the owner’s keys at the identity provider or an expired identity document stops new authority the same way | AGENT_NOT_ACTIVE, MANDATE_SUSPENDED on the next call; the revocation in the audit trail |
What the console is
The console (Agents, Mandates, Approvals, Activity, Settings) is where a
person does these things. Everything it shows is also in the API and the audit trail; everything
it signs is signed with the person’s own passkey, so the console never holds authority of its
own. Agents reach the same moments without the console: an escalation card in the chat, an
e-mail link, regent-control onboard for an agent with a terminal.
Why it is a primitive
A control plane that only enforces limits is a calculator. The limits are only worth enforcing if a person set them knowingly, and an action outside them is only safe if a person decided it. Oversight is what turns the system allowed it into the owner allowed it, which is the sentence an auditor, an insurer or a counterparty actually needs.